Our mobile companion for 31 days

We are obviously now back at home in Germany, and I have a few more entries to make i this blog before I stop making entries.
So, one thing I wanted to do was talk a bit about our companion for 31 days: a Chrysler Town & Country Fox rental car in LA. We drove about 4000 miles (6000 km) in two cars over the time period of our holiday. Bottom line is that i'm basically satisfied, albeit not completely unconditional.
Our first car was a red 2008 Town & Country with about 500 miles on the odometer when we received it. I was amazed at the room!
This is a 7 seater vehicle with sufficient room behind the 3rd row for luggage: 4 suitcases and two bags!
From what i can see, they have eliminated the spare wheel (and spare wheel well), and that gives a rather sizeable opening behind the 3rd seat. I must admit thought that whilst driving through some hotter parts of our trip (52 deg celcius) i was a bit worried about what i would do if we got a flat tire. But nothing happened and the room was very welcome.
After about 2 weeks into our trip the ABS light came on in the instrument panel. As we were about 500 miles from the nearest Fox rental car station, i made a management decision: i ignored it! After about another 1000 miles, somewhere around San Francisco, the oil light came on. There was sufficient oil in the engine so i knew it was something else....sensor i was hoping :).
So, as we returned to the Los Angeles area i rang Fox and the immediately offered to echange the car. We did this and received another Town & Country (gold this time).
We drove this car until i returned it on the afternoon of July 30. No problems this time.
Now, during the trip i kept a record of mileages:


This miliage is probably still just ok for the USA, but definately not for Europe.
As a sidenote, after we arrived back in Germany i drove my C-Max (1.6L Diesel) from Frankfurt back home. During the trip I averaged about 160 Kph (100 mph), and got 6.4 L/100km (37 mpg). Not bad i'd say.
Anyway, 17-24 mpg is simply not enough for our times.

I did enjoy this car. It was easy to drive, had all of the comforts of good highway cruising, lots of space, and a nice little feature that really came in handy: between the front seats and the second row there was a rather large storage space in the footwell. It spanned the width of the car and really came in handy during our fuller rides. We were very crowded, but it was always comfortable.....

The Trip back: Thanks Air France...NOT!!!

Well our trip back from Los Angeles was a bit of nightmare.
Now, I should state, in the interest of full disclosure, that when i travel for business i normally try to avoid flying NorthWest, Air France and KLM. In my opinion, still the worst airlines in terms of service, airplanes, cleanliness, amenities, technology, and just plain any sort of "Wow" factor while flying. They don't seem to have understood yet that passengers have a choice.
My advice to them: go take a couple of flights on BA, Thai air, Cathay Pacific, etc. If you can't tell the difference you're blind.
Anyway, i wanted to talk about our trip back from LA.
As our last day in LA was still a tourist day, viewing the sights of Hollywood, we wanted to check in early, to leave our bags. After getting completely frustrated trying to find out whether this was possible using AF's WEB page, and from Air France's hotline, we traveled to the airport. I stood in line there for 15 minutes only to find out that this was not possible. Again, thanks Air France.
When we then finally checked in that evening there was much debate about what we could take on board, and what not. To make a long story short, we finally had to check in 13 pieces of luggage... yes 13. Glad we were 7 people so no extra charge.
Seating arrangements were non-negotiable, so one person in our party sat on the other side of the plane. After check in, and sending us through the wrong security gate (yes, we had to go back completely the other way), we finally arrived at our terminal. As we had had so much stress at check-in, and it took ages, we were all hungry. Originally the plan was to check-in, find a restaurant for our final US meal, and then casually board the plane.
Well, the LA terminal for Air France has: Burger King, a restaurant/Bar where kids are not allowed, and another pizza place. That's it! Only the Bar served any alkohol....
So, BK it was, and another surprise: twice the price! Yep, the menus were twice the price of BK anywhere else. Even more than European prices!
Well we boarded the flight and noted a huge group of French kids that were apparently returning from a summer trip to the USA. These would keep us up most of the night, while our French flight attendants did basically nothing to calm them. Again, thanks Air France.
Due to a huge take off delay in LA we arrived at Charles de Gaulle airport with about 1/2 hour between connecting flights, and had to change terminals. Departing the plane there was no one from Air France to give any guidance. So we ran to the next terminal, only to find out that another security check was required. As we exited this, we were stopped by attendants, casually telling us that the skimboard we had with us on carry-on would have to be checked. Note: we now had about 10 minutes before scheduled take-off of the next flight. As the Air France people in LA assured us that this wold be ok for carry-on, this is where i lost it. Not typical for me, but i began to accuse the agents of complete incompetence, complained that CDG airport is the only one in the world where customers always have problems, and finally slammed the board on the table and told the agent to have fun surfing with his new confiscated skimboard.
This behavior was apparently not appreciated, so i was pulled to the side and told that the police would be coming, action TBD. I told the kids and Petra to go on to the next flight so that at least they would make it home.
But, in the end, the police simply took my personals, and let me go. I ran to the terminal, where i saw Petra speaking to the agents, demanding the the flight is held up for me. I was the last person on the plane, which was now about 10 minutes late closing, due to me.
One final note, when we arrived at Frankfurt one of our checked pieces of luggage was lost.

So, in summary, this experience has convinced me that my policy of avoiding AF/NWA/KLM is absolutely still valid. The service is crap, the people are uninformed and unprofessional, the planes are not well maintained (cleanliness only), and the food is terrible too.
Thanks Air France .....NOT!!!

Unexpected and scary, but memorable!!

Well, I guess a California vacation would not be complete without experiencing the thing that many people associate with California: EARTHQUAKES!!
Yep, we experienced one, and, not simply a tremor. Apparently this was the real thing.
To set the stage a bit, we are currently in the Embassy suites at LAX airport. An 8 story, box shaped building with a very open atrium in the middle. This means that you can look across the atrium to the other side of the building. This sight allows a very good indication of how much a building would be swaying in an Earthquake.

Some views from our room
We are on the top floor (8th) of this building. After a leisurely breakfast we were making our final preparations for our day at the beach (Venice beach this time). I slowly felt some tremors and looked at Anastasia to see if she noticed also. Just then the tremors increased in magnitude and i got up from the table to call the others. Immediately i opened the room door and saw some hotel employees scrambling around the elevators, which stopped working immediately. At that point i looked across the atrium and saw the magnitude of the movements and yelled to all that we are "getting out now". As we are foreigners here, it is difficult to gauge what is normal and what is more than normal. I asked one of the employees about ranking this relative to the regular tremors that they have, and he said "this is bad"! We started to walk more quickly down the stairs!
But, at the second floor the stairwell ended, with no indicators of how to proceed on. We scrambled a bit, found a hotel employee who had to figure out a way out herself. Not good Embassy Suites!
Anyway, we finally made it out of the hotel and witnessed discussions all day about this event.
So i guess we can attribute this to another "vacation event", this one being quite memorable!

Traditional dinner at TGIF

Another Johnson regular, second to last night of the vacation, but we made it!

Redondo Beach

Today we continued our CBT with a visit to Redondo beach and pier.

Not much to really say, other than, another very nice beach and an interesting pier too. This beach was almost empty when we arrived (about 13:00), but filled a bit later in the day. The sand was again silky and the water a bit colder. But we all had a relaxing time, which is the main point. Some impressions....

The beach and our comfortable beach placeThere must be something down here .....Can those things really be eaten? You better move back Adriana...The Pier

Just like OC ....

Huntington Beach State Park

As we continue our "California Beach Tours" (CBT's), we made our way to the Huntington State park beach today. Prior to that we took a short detour via the Fashion Island shopping mall, just to make sure we did not miss any hot deals!

The beach in Huntington is huge. It probably stretches over a 3-4 mile length, all of it pure silky sand. The locals really seem to enjoy this facility, with picnics, sports and all kinds of other outdoor activities, right on the beach. You should see the size of some of the barbecue grills that they bring along onto the beach, for the day!

I'm continually amazed at how this state has successfully kept developers from annexing the beach areas to develop into high priced condominiums. With the apparent money that people in this state have (saw 3 Lamborghini's (on the road), a couple of Ferraris, and countless hot Porsches (not the normal type)), it seems that there would be ample leverage to make the beaches available for "proper development". Not knowing the background, I can only congratulate the local governments for preventing this. It is so nice to go to a clean, safe, gorgeous public beach. Thanks California.

Anyway, getting back to the subject, we had another nice day at the beach, in Huntington.Starting off with a little girl, playing nicely in the sand....

Moving to a little girl being buried and looking all sandy when pulled out...

To another girl (not so little anymore) also being buried....

To her brother taking advantage of the situation.

Nice day....

Fashion mall shopping

Und die letzten Tage werden nochmal genutzt....

Beach Surfing

Today we went to Laguna beach (Aliso Beach), which is another public beach area. This means it's open to everyone for daytime hours. As there was a boogie board event on this beach today, it was very crowded and we had to search for a spot.
However the day was not meant to be a pleasant beach day, as the whether was not good. So, we stayed for a little while, and then decided to go to the movies.

But, some did make good use of the time, with some "beach Surfing". The AT&T network is good in metropolitan areas, and so surfing anywhere is possible......

Tijuana Mexico

Heute war der Tag an dem wir nach Tijuana Mexiko fahren wollten. Das haben wir auch so gemacht, nur nicht ganz so wie wir das geplant hatten!
Leider war auf der I5, irgendwo in Camp Pendelten ein Unfall, und dieser verursachte einen über 20 Milen langen Stau. Mann muss natürlich wissen das die I5 direkt durch das Gelände des Camp Pendelten verläuft, und es deswegen keine anderen Umgehungsstraßen gibt. Somit war unsere Hinfahrt, die für 1.5 Stunden geplant war, auf knapp 4 Stunden verlängert. Wir sind so spät zur Grenze südlich von San Diego gekommen, das wir nur noch genug Zeit (und lust) hatten um uns ein kleines bisschen umzusehen. Da mann mit Mietwagen nicht ueber die Grenze fahren darf, mussten wir rueber laufen. Das ist ja nicht so weit, dauert aber auch nochmal eine halbe Stunde.
Die Stadt (Tijuana) ist viel größer als wir erwartet hatten, und natürlich auch sehr "Touristen Freundlich". Da wir nur zur San Revo hingelaufen sind, sahen wir nur die üblichen Verkaufstsäende, mit all dem was man nicht braucht. Witzig ist das viele Verkäufer mit diesem Spruch geworben haben: "Please come in and see all the things you don't need!"
Naja, einen richtigen "Mexiko" Eindruck haben wir nicht bekommen, aber ich fand es trotzdem schön.
Petra und Anuschka waren ein bisschen abgeneigt von der ganzen Sache, da es schon ein bisschen dritte Welt Charakter hatte. Aber, das ist halt teil des Abenteuers, und wer nicht flexibel ist verpasst den meisten Spass :)

Das Essen war auch ein bisschen was anderes, obwohl es nicht so Original Mexikanisch war. Aber, gebratener Kaktus war schon dabei, und das war auch für mich was neues. Die Frauen hatten Margaritas bestellt, und da es happy hour war kamen direkt zwei!

Alessandro und ich bestellten was angeblich original Mexikanisches, was letztendlich auch OK war. Da war eine Wurst dabei wo mann lieber nicht fragt was da drin ist! Anastasia bestellte auch was leckeres (mutig!), und Petra hatte "kein Hunger". Laura hatte Fahitas und Anuschka wollte nur Pommes.... naja. Selbst Schuld!
Der Heimweg (ins Hotel) dauerte sogar weniger als der Hinweg geplant war (1 Stunde), aber auch ok. Schöner Tag.

Surf Day

Well, yesterday was surf day at the Johnsons. Both Alessandro and Anuschka spent significant energy in trying to boogie board. We splurged and went to a surf shop. We thought this would be best, as all of us are amateurs (actually ignorant) in this sport. We got good advice from the salesman (who promptly told us about Oberamergau), and bought a board.

Unfortunately we had make a stop at Wallmart later in the day to get some other items, and saw a similar board for $20 less! Lesson: always go to Wallmart first?

Anyway, forgetting all that as the day developed into pure fun in surfing. The waves were big, and the kids were ambitious. Both Alessandro and Anuschka just would not give up until they caught some good waves. Fantastic, have a look. (BTW: all of these pictures were taken with a video camera! Canon HF10. Fantastic)

Geburtstag Nachfeier

Alessandro hatte ja in USA seinen 19 Geburtstag, und wir hatten vor da schön essen zu gehen. Aber, er wollte diesen Termin aufheben bis die Laura ankam, und somit sind wir an diesem Abend zu einem schönen Restaurant gegangen. Ich denke alle hatten spass und bekamen ihr Lieblings Essen....schöner Abend.

Nochmal: shop till you drop

Und auch Laura musste shoppen

San Clemente State Beach

This is really a very nice beach, and I would recommend it to anyone, with or without children. It's clean, quiet, not too much algae, almost pure sand, the tide does not vary that much, and at least during the week it is not overcrowded. The water is clean, and not too cold. But the waves are just as high as elsewhere. We were even able to see a swarm of dolphins not far off the shore! Brilliant. The "surfliner" runs between the beach and the mainland, but is not at all intrusive. It runs very slowly and makes one think of how nice the ride must be, riding along the beach!

People seem to keep it conscientiously very clean, and all around were extremely friendly. In fact, that is something I've really noticed during this whole trip. The people we've had a chance to interact with were outgoingly friendly. Willing to help and give honest advice. Peculiar thing was that some even were a little apologetic when they heard we were from Germany, i.e. not the USA. They mentioned subjects like foreign policy, the war, energy policies of the USA (even mentioned Kyoto!), etc.. I guess this must be mainly because we are traveling in and around California, and the political climate here has always been a bit more conscious and progressive (just witness the stringent Automotive requirements!).

Anyway, the main point i wanted to make is that we've been met with so much friendliness that it's a bit sad that all of America is getting a bad rap at the moment internationally.

Well, this beach is nice, so if you are ever in the neighborhood, have a look!

After the beach we headed straight (beach shorts, salty skin, messy hair) to a nice casual Mexican restaurant here in San Clemente: El Mariachi The food is excellent Mexican, the atmosphere is casual, the TVs are huge, and the beer is cold. Just one thing: don't order too much! The portions are gigantic. No one in our group finished theirs, not even Alessandro. Nice place.

San Clemente beach: wunderschön

Heute sind wir am National State park beach, von San Clemente. Es ist schön zu sehen, das so viel schöner Strand reserviert ist als öffentlicher beach. Keine großen Hotelketten. Das Bier bringt man selbst! Einige Eindrücke...